T aking  Municipal  Contracts 

out  of  Politics 


RICHARD  HENRY  DANA 


Chairman  Council  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League. 


Reprinted  from  Proceedings  of  Annual  Muting  of 
The  National  Municipal  League. 


ieoe 


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Taking  Municipal  Contracts  out  of  Politics 

SUMMARY 


INI 


Oi 


Municipal  administration  has  become  “a  complicated  vseries 
of  technical  services,”  requiring  experts  of  special  education, 
training,  and,  in  addition,  long  experience  in  municipal  work. 

With  us,  this  expert  service  is  mingled  with  politics.  To 
keep  their  places,  the  would-be  experts  give  contracts  to 
political  favorites,  enforce  the  law  or  not  with  reference  to 
politics,  cannot  secure  a  day’s  work  for  a  day’s  pay  from  vot¬ 
ing  laborers,  and  hide  extravagance  and  fraud,  all  of  which  is 
bad  government. 

Most  of  the  best  and  highest-minded  experts  refuse  munic¬ 
ipal  service  as  offensive,  of  uncertain  tenure  and  demoralizing. 

In  England  and  Europe,  the  expert  administration,  with 
permanent  tenure  during  good  behavior  and  efficiency,  offers 
a  career  that  attracts  the  best  men,  and  is  separated  from  the/ 
political  executive. 

It  is  objected  that  such  separation  destroys  the  “responsi¬ 
bility”  of  the  chief  executive.  It  is  answered  that  no  chief 
executive  can  be  held  to  responsibility  for  details.  That 
should  be  put  on  the  permanent  experts. 

Again,  it  is  objected  that  the  experts  should  be  cabinet 
officers  of  the  chief  executive.  There  may  well  be  cabinet 
officers  to  aid  the  political  executive  in  determining  policies, 
fixing  the  budget,  and  inspecting  the  expert  service  and  hold¬ 
ing  it  to  account  by  power  to  remove  for  reasons  made  public; 
but  the  political  cabinet  officers  should  be  wholly  separate 
persons  from  the  experts  themselves. 

Again,  it  is  said  that  our  chief  executive  should  appoint  his 
own  experts  to  carry  out  his  policies.  In  the  great  railroads, 
eminent  reorganizers  keep  the  experts,  even  where  altering 
the  former  policies.  Municipal  experts,  if  not  the  appointees 


/ 


3 


V 


of  the  chief  executive,  will  be  held  all  the  more  strictly  to 
account. 

Again,  it  is  objected  that  the  heads  of  business  concerns  can 
remove  at  pleasure;  but  the  “pocket  nerve”  and  the  absence 
of  political  pressure  in  private  business,  have  to  be  offset  in 
politics  by  requiring  publicity  of  reasons  for  removal. 

It  has  been  found  necessary  to  separate  the  judiciary  from 
politics,  to  secure  the  best  expert  administration  of  justice. 

The  great  river  and  harbor,  and  the  Panama  Canal  work 
for  the  United  States  have  been  done  by  army  engineers  eflS- 
ciently  and  honestly,  and  they  are  free  from  politics. 

It  is  believed  we  must  change  our  whole  idea  of  a  political 
chief,  responsible  for  detailed  administration.  That  idea  was 
suitable  enough  in  the  days  of  small  affairs  which  could  easily 
be  understood  by  the  public  and  controlled  by  their  votes. 
But  it  has  broken  down  in  our  large  cities  with  complicated 
administration. 

We  should  adopt  instead  the  European  idea  of  permanent, 
trained,  expert  service  of  engineers,  lawyers,  physicians,  arch¬ 
itects,  almoners,  educators,  etc.,  responsible  for  administering 
in  detail  within  appropriations  and  policies  laid  out  by  the 
political  side. 

Experience  has  demonstrated  that  it  is  possible  to  adjust 
the  political  representative  and  the  expert  administrative 
spheres  of  action  so  as  to  avoid  “mob”  bungling  of  expert 
services  without  falling  into  red  tape  bureaucracy. 

The  results  of  such  a  change  would  be  municipal  careers 
attractive  to  high-grade  experts,  the  enforcement  instead  of 
the  evasion  of  the  merit  system,  sanitary  laws  carried  out, 
economy  and  clear  accounting  secured,  obtaining  a  day’s 
work  for  a  day’s  pay,  definite  fixing  of  responsibility  between 
the  political  executive  and  the  somewhat  independent  expert 
administrators,  continuity  of  public  works,  the  separation  of 
the  spending  from  the  appropriating  power,  taking  the  en¬ 
forcement  of  laws,  the  municipal  contracts  and  the  purchase 
of  supplies  out  of  politics,  and  so  driving  the  money-seeking 
politicians  out  of  business,  and  making  it  easier  to  select  and 
keep  good,  a  good  and  capable  chief  executive. 

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Taking  Municipal  Contracts  Out  of 

Politics. 


RICHARD  HENRY  DANA,  BOSTON, 

Chairman  Executive  Committee  National  Civil  Service  Reform  League. 

Municipal  administration  has  now  become  “  a  complicated 
series  of  technical  services,”  requiring  men  of  high  character, 

thorough  training,  and  expert  in  administration. 
Complications  of  ^  requires  the  services  of  civil,  hydraulic 

Government  sanitary  engineers,  of  lawyers,  physicians, 

bacteriologists,  chemists,  landscape  and  building 
architects,  scientific  almoners,  educators,  expert  accountants  and 
financiers.  Moreover,  municipal  service  is,  of  itself,  a  specialized 
branch  of  these  professions.  There  are  special  text-books  pre¬ 
pared  and  special  courses  of  study  given  for  municipal  work  in 
the  great  technical  institutions  of  the  world.  But,  in  addition  to 
special  training  for  municipal  work,  the  greatest  efficiency  can 
only  be  secured  in  that  service  by  long-continued  practise  in  muni¬ 
cipal  undertakings.  As  the  author  of  “  A  Modern  Symposium  ” 
has  put  it,  “  Governments  in  every  civilized  country  are  now 
moving  towards  the  ideal  of  an  expert  administration  controlled 
by  an  alert  and  intelligent  public  opinion.” 

How  far  is  this  ideal  being  carried  out  in  our  American  cities? 
The  question  is  as  easily  answered  in  general  as  it  is  asked,  and 
the  answer  is.  We  fail. 

The  next  question  to  ask  ourselves  is  why  we  fail.  The 
Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  in  New  York  City  and  the  Finance 
Commission  in  Boston  have  recently  thrown  much  light  on  the 
administration  of  those  cities,  and  that  light  has  disclosed  in 
general  a  low  rate  of  efficiency  and  a  high  rate  of  expense; 
and,  in  particular,  the  heads  of  administrative  departments,  for 
the  most  part,  to  be  untrained,  inexperienced  and  incompetent, 
frequently  changed,  in  many  cases  dishonest  and  in  others  at  least 
giving  in  to,  if  not  personally  profiting  by,  dishonest  practises. 
The  Boston  Finance  Commission  reported  that  the  few  capable 


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and  honest  heads  of  departments,  they  regretted  to  say,  had  failed ' 
to  disclose,  had  apparently  been  unable  to  prevent,  and,  in  sev¬ 
eral  cases,  had  actually  furthered  dishonest  practises  which  had 
come  to  their  knowledge  but  from  which  they  got  no  profit,  ex¬ 
cept  their  continuance  in  office.  With  it  all  we  see  most  con¬ 
spicuously  the  mingling  of  politics  with  what  ought  to  be  the 
expert  administration  of  details. 

Now,  how  is  it  in  the  cities  of  Europe  and  Great  Britain? 
There  we  find  high  grade,  especially  trained  experts,  carrying  on 

the  detailed  administration,  with  continuity  of 
Fweign  service  and  policy,  and  no  mingling  of  politics 

ciency  expert  branch.  There  we  find  a  clear 

separation  between  the  political  executive  and  the  expert  admin¬ 
istration;  and  it  is  also  worthy  of  remark  that  this  is  almost  the 
only  important  feature  in  common,  as  the  kinds  of  municipal 
government  differ  in  those  countries.  For  example,  in  Great 
Britain,  for  the  most  part,  the  political  executive  work  is  carried 
on  by  committees  of  the  municipal  councils,  which  are  also  legis¬ 
lative  and  appropriative  bodies,  the  mayors  being  mere  presiding 
officers,  and  a  pretty  broad  electorate.  In  France,  the  mayor, 
called  in  Paris  the  prefect  of  the  Seine,  is  the  chief  political 
executive.  Except  in  Paris,  the  mayors  are  elected.  The  city 
councils,  also  elected,  are  the  legislative  and  appropriating  bodies 
in  all  the  European  cities.  For  Paris  and  three  of  its  suburbs, 
the  prefect  is  appointed  by  the  national  minister  of  the  interior, 
partly  on  the  theory  that  the  national  government  appropriates 
large  sums  of  money  for  the  capital  city,  just  as  Congress  does 
for  Washington.  In  Germany,  the  city  councils  select  a  mayor 
who  is  not  a  political  executive  but  rather  an  expert  in  municipal 
administration,  sometimes  chosen  for  a  long  term  of  ten  or  twelve 
years  or  so,  and  sometimes  practically  for  life,  frequently  having 
served  successfully  for  years  as  mayor  of  a  smaller  city,  and  then 
called  by  promotion  to  administer  the  larger  one.  The  elective 
franchise  in  Germany  is  far  more  restricted  and  property  holding 
given  a  larger  influence  than  in  the  cities  of  either  Great  Britain 
or  France.  The  one  common  feature  of  all,  differing  as  they  do 
in  other  respects,  is  the  employment  of  high  grade,  expert  admin¬ 
istrators,  their  permanent  tenure  of  office,  and  the  separation  of 


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them  from  the  political  side  of  the  government.  In  Germany  and 
France,  this  separation  is  more  rigid  and  complete  than  in  Great 
Britain,  where  it  seems  to  exist  more  from  custom,  and  there  are 
not  wanting  signs  that  the  separation  in  Great  Britain  is  not  as 
complete  as  it  should  be,  though  in  the  main  well  sustained  at 
present. 

Is  this  common  feature  of  separation  in  well-governed  cities, 
and  the  absence  of  it  in  the  badly-administered  ones,  a  mere  coin¬ 
cidence  or  result,  or  is  it  an  underlying  cause  of  the  good  and 
bad  results?  To  answer  this,  let  us  examine  a  little  more  closely 
and  see  if  there  is  anything  in  the  mingling  of  politics  with  expert 
administration,  that  has  anything  to  do  with’causing  extravagance, 
graft  and  inefficiency;  anything  in  the  conditions  of  this  inter¬ 
mingling  that  has  a  bearing  on  the  motives  that  affect  the  actions 
of  men. 

Now  what  do  we  find?  First,  we  must  notice  that  this  inter¬ 
mingling  of  politics  with  would-be  expert  administration  in  our 

American  cities  is  not  only  allowed  but  com- 
Politics  and  pelled.  In  many  charters,  the  terms  of  office 
Expert  Service  supposed  expert  administrators  are  co¬ 

terminous  with  those  of  the  chief  political  executives.  In  a  few 
the  terms  are  indefinite;  but  the  chief  executive  can,  as  a  rule, 
turn  out  the  administrative  officers  without  assignment  of  cause, 
and  put  in  their  places  whom  he  wishes,  is  supposed  to  make 
pretty  sweeping  changes  when  he  comes  into  office,  and  generally 
has  a  right  to  put  his  thumb  into  the  expert  details,  and  often, 
as  we  see,  pulls  out  for  himself  and  his  friends  many  a  plum; 
for  example,  ordering  a  contract  to  be  assigned  to  some  favorite 
instead  of  given  on  open  competition,  or  having  purchases  made 
from  a  particular  firm,  or  payment  withheld  from  another,  and 
the  like.  But  even  in  the  case  of  competitive  bids,  by  this  power 
over  and  interference  with  the  supposed  expert  administrators, 
the  political  chief  can  arrange  to  have  the  specifications  for  com¬ 
petitive  contracts  so  loosely  drawn  as  to  make  it  easy  to  assist 
a  favorite  and  injure  an  opponent  or  a  mere  negative  outsider. 
By  means  of  allowing  large  bills  for  extras  or  the  substitution 
'of  inferior  materials,  he  can  enable  the  favorite  to  make  a  large 
profit,  and  by  holding  up  every  payment  and  making  frivolous 


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objections  to  all  the  work  done,  can  ruin  the  independent  outside 
contractor.  Indeed,  it  might  as  well  be  published  with  the  ad¬ 
vertisement  for  municipal  competitive  contracts,  “  No  contractor 
unwilling  to  divvy  need  apply.”  In  these  ways  and  by  “  split 
contracts,”  “  straw  bids,”  and  other  well-known  devices,  laws 
requiring  competitive  bids  are  evaded  or  nullified,  and  the  muni¬ 
cipal  contracts  and  purchases  of  supplies  are  kept  in  politics, 
with  easy  opportunity  for  large,  fraudulent  profits. 

The  supposed  expert  administrators,  for  the  most  part,  are 
men  without  the  necessary  education,  training  or  experience, 
whose  chief  bringing-up  has  too  frequently  been  in  the  saloons 
and  ward  politics.  As  to  the  “  motives  that  affect  the  actions  of 
men,”  these  would-be  experts,  even  when  capable  and  honest  and 
when  not  compelled  by  their  chief  executive,  are  practically 
forced  into  politics,  as  already  shown,  from  their  own  natural 
desire  for  the  success  at  nominations  and  elections  of  the  politi¬ 
cal  forces  that  put  and  keep  them  in  office.  They  have  not  only 
to  distribute  contracts  and  the  purchase  of  supplies,  for  politi¬ 
cal  purposes,  but  they  seek  to  thwart  the  civil-service  laws  and 
to  secure  as  many  exempted  positions  as  possible  in  order  to  in¬ 
crease  their  political  patronage.  They  dare  not  enforce  a  day’s 
work  for  a  day’s  pay  among  the  city  laborers  who  are  voters. 
They  resort  to  complicated  methods  of  accounting,  as  far  as  the 
law  or  evasions  of  it  will  allow,  so  as  to  conceal  extravagance. 

The  well-meaning  mayor  and  his  political  experts  do  not  have 
to  build  up  a  political  machine.  They  find  ward  leaders  already 
on  hand,  who  control  the  nominating  machinery  of  their  respective 
districts  by  appeals  to  party  and  race  prejudice,  religious  differ¬ 
ences,  and  by  securing  favors  for  a  large  following,  building  up 
an  extensive  acquaintance  and  gaining  popularity  in  numerous 
ways,  sometimes  unobjectionable  in  themselves,  but  all  for  a 
purpose.  These  ward  leaders  ask  favors  for  themselves  and  their 
henchmen  and  it  is  hard  to  resist  them.  It  is  soon  found  that 
these  ward  politicians  and  leaders  of  combinations  of  wards  have 
far  more  to  say  about  the  nomination  and  election  of  a  mayor 
and  aldermen  than  the  ordinary  business  or  professional  man  in 
ordinary  years.  Indeed,  the  support  of  these  leaders  is  fre¬ 
quently  indispensable  for  retention  in  office,  either  for  the  mayor 


9 


of  Expert 
Service 


or  for  the  heads  of  departments.  It  is  no  more  than  human 
nature  that  a  good  mayor  and  capable  experts  will  gradually 
yield  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  that  the  political  leaders 
will  seek  a  mayor,  the  more  respectable  and  well-meaning  the 
better,  such  as  will  not,  in  practice,  resist  their  power. 

For  example,  the  present  mayor  of  Boston,  elected  on  a  re¬ 
form  wave  after  the  exposures  by  the  first  Finance  Commission, 
and  who  in  the  beginning  made  retrenchments,  is  now  shown 
by  the  present  permanent  Finance  Commission  to  be  guilty,  in  a 
far  less  degree,  however,  than  his  predecessors,  of  extravagance, 
of  securing  partisan  appointments  and  of  raising  salaries  unnec¬ 
essarily  as  the  question  of  re-election  comes  on. 

Let  us  take  the  point  of  view  of  experts  who  may  consider 
taking  employment.  Capable  engineers  and  scientific  men  are 

discouraged  from  accepting  municipal  expert 
Discouragement  administrative  work  on  account  of  this  very  in¬ 
termingling  of  politics  and  the  uncertainty  of 
tenure.  The  present  mayor  of  Boston,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  elected,  as  I  have  just  said,  on  a  wave  of  reform,  found 
it  impossible  to  persuade  any  of  the  few  high-grade  persons  he 
first  selected  to  accept  the  office  of  superintendent  of  streets. 
Mr.  McAneny,  recently  elected  president  of  the  Borough  of  Man¬ 
hattan,  New  York,  has  the  same  difficulty  in  getting  fit  men  for 
heads  of  his  departments. 

Not  only  are  the  chief  experts  discouraged  from  entering  mu¬ 
nicipal  service,  but  for  assistant  experts  we  do  not  get  the  high 
class  of  men  we  might  otherwise  obtain.  Besides  uncertainty  of 
tenure  there  is  little  hope  of  promotion  to  the  highest  places, 
the  service  is  not  a  career,  and  the  forced  intermingling  of  prac¬ 
tical  politics  is  not  only  offensive  to  men  of  high  principle  and 
attainments,  but  it  is  demoralizing  to  character.  Several  promi¬ 
nent  technical  and  scientific  educators  in  our  country  have  pub¬ 
licly  declared  they  advise  their  young  graduates  not  to  enter  mu¬ 
nicipal  employment,  while  if  the  service  represented  a  career, 
free  from  practical  politics,  they  as  publicly  declare  their  advice 
would  be  exactly  the  opposite.  As  a  result,  by  not  getting  the 
best  material  for  assistant  experts,  we  do  not  have  the  persons 
with  special  municipal  training  qualified  for  promotion  to  the 


lO 


positions  of  chief  experts  we  might  otherwise  have,  so  that  our 
loss  is  twofold. 

Municipal  records  are  often  not  complete  or  trustworthy.  The 
Commission  to  investigate  the  feasibility  and  desirability  of  dam¬ 
ming  the  mouth  of  the  Charles  River  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston, 
for  example,  found  that  the  city  plans  and  records  in  regard  to 
the  drainage  system  were  so  faulty  as  to  be  valueless  and  new 
plans  based  on  fresh  surveys  had  to  be  made.  I  do  not  refer  to 
the  Metropolitan  Sewer  Board’s  plans. 

The  idea  of  separating,  the  political  from  the  expert  adminis¬ 
tration  was  presented  to  the  first  Boston  Finance  Commission, 

and  was  received  with  marked  approval ;  but 
Report  of  later,  they  were  moved  to  modify  this  policy  by 

Boston  Fmance  arguments  from  influential  and  high-minded 

citizens  on  the  theory  that  such  separation  would 
diminish  the  “  responsibility  ”  of  the  chief  political  executive. 
In  the  charter  which  they  recommended,  and  which  has  passed 
the  Legislature,  the  would-be  experts  are  pretty  much  in  their 
old  position  of  being  mingled  with  politics,  their  terms  of  ap¬ 
pointment,  like  the  mayor’s,  are  for  four  years,  they  cannot  be 
removed  during  their  terms  of  office,  except  for  reasons  filed  with 
a  chance  to  reply,  but  at  the  end  of  their  terms,  hold  at  the 
mayor’s  pleasure,  their  salaries  may  be  lowered  or  abolished  al¬ 
together  by  the  mayor  and  city  council  and  in  case  of  vacancy 
the  mayor  may  appoint  whom  he  wishes,  with  the  one  obstacle 
that  new  appointees  must  qualify  before  the  civic  service  com¬ 
mission.  A  qualifying  test,  however,  has  been  shown  again  and 
again,  in  many  years  of  past  and  recent  history,  and  in  numerous 
countries,  neither  to  take  the  appointments  out  of  politics  nor  to 
secure  permanency  of  tenure;  nor  high  ability;  at  best  it  keeps 
out  the  absolutely  incompetent ;  so  that,  after  all,  the  commingling 
of  politics  with  expert  administration  still  exists  in  Boston’s  new 
city  charter. 

As  this  idea  of  responsibility  seems,  in  the  minds  of  many  not 
only  in  Boston  but  elsewhere,  to  be  opposed  to  the  idea  of  separ¬ 
ating  the  expert  administration,  let  us  examine  a  little  more  care¬ 
fully  into  this  “  responsibility 

In  its  report,  the  Commission  gives  as  an  illustration  of  success- 


II 


ful  executive  responsibility,  such  as  they  had  in  mind,  the  ad¬ 
ministration  of  the  first  Josiah  Quincy  as  mayor  of  Boston  in 
1823-9.  The  population  of  Boston  was  then  60,000,  and  the 
functions  of  the  city  were  extremely  simple.  There  was  no  water 
supply,  no  street  railway,  no  sewer  system.  The  fire  department 
consisted  of  a  few  Perkins’  tubs,”  worked  by  hand,  in  con¬ 
trol  of  unpaid  volunteer  companies.  In  the  last  year  of  Josiah 
Quincy’s  administration,  an  extra  “  tub  ”  was  put  in  South 
Boston.  There  were  no  steam  fire-engines  until  1855.  The 
electric  fire  alarm  was  introduced  years  later.  The  pavements 
were  simple  gravel  roads,  or  cobblestones  taken  from  the  islands 
in  the  harbor.  There  was  no  police  department ;  only  a  few  con¬ 
stables.  The  superintendent  of  streets  needed  only  to  be  an  in¬ 
telligent  boss  teamster,  who  could  select  good  packing  gravel,  and 
see  that  the  workmen  rammed  the  cobble  stones  with  some  de¬ 
gree  of  evenness.  Macadam  and  Telford  pavement  were  un¬ 
known.  There  was  no  need  of  engineering  skill  beyond  simple 
surveying.  Bacteriology  was  an  unknown  science.  There  was 
no  public  library,  no  city  hospital,  no  city  ferries,  no  compli¬ 
cated  questions  with  steam  railroads  and  terminal  facilities.  The 
area  of  Boston  was  then  less  than  one-third  of  its  present  area, 
and  but  a  still  smaller  fraction  of  that  of  New  York,  Philadel¬ 
phia  or  Chicago  of  to-day.  Its  annual  expenditure  was  then 
$333jOOO)  while  now  it  is  $25,000,000,  and  New  York’s  budget 
is  $165,000,000  a  year.  Its  debt  was  about  $900,000,  while 
now  it  is  about  $100,000,000.^  This  first  Mayor  Quincy  might 
have  known  personally  every  constable,  foreman  and  many  of  the 
laborers  in  the  city.  He  could  easily  have  visited  every  laying  of 
cobblestones  or  spreading  of  road  gravel,  and  he  might  have 
inspected  the  trial  of  the  “  Perkins’  tub  ”  for  South  Boston,  and 
yet  have  had  time  to  attend  to  all  his  other  obligations,  public 
and  private.  Indeed,  those  were  the  days  of  primitive  things, 
when  the  mayor^and  the  voters  could  easily  comprehend  and  intel¬ 
ligently  pass  upon  all  the  simple  details  of  administration,  and 
when  Mr.  Quincy’s  view  that  at  all  times  the  blame  should  rest 
upon  him  (the  mayor)  without  power  of  throwing  it  off  on 


1  Including  its  share  of  Metropolitan  debt  which  the  city  will  have  to  pay. 


12 


Others  in  case  of  any  defect  of  plan  or  inefficiency  of  execution  ** 
was  feasible.  I  don’t  believe  there  is  a  man  living  who  can  to-day 
successfully  carry  that  sort  of  responsibility  for  “  defect  of  plan 
or  inefficiency  of  execution  ”  for  one  of  our  large,  modern  cities, 
nor  is  he  held  up  to  it  by  the  voters  at  the  polls.  Indeed,  that 
Mayor  Quincy  kind  of  responsibility,  as  President  Eliot  has 
well  said,  is  to-day  “  a  myth  ”. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  kind  of  “  responsibility  ”, 
which  means  that  the  political  executive  must  have  a  hand  in 

appointing  all  his  would-be  experts,  which  was 
Responsibility  proper  enough  in  the  simple  days  such  as  those 

^  of  the  first  Mayor  Quincy,  has  not  become  a  use¬ 

less  appendix  to  our  present  complex  administration,  causing  dis¬ 
ease  and  danger,  and  only  fit  to  be  cut  out  from  our  modern  plan 
of  municipal  government.  We  give  unlimited  responsibility  and 
in  practice  the  politicians  exercise  it. 

One  step  further;  it  is  worthy  of  treatment  by  a  separate 
thesis  whether  we  secure  as  great  practical  responsibility  (for 
responsibility  somewhere  of  course  we  must  have)  to  the  public, 
when  the  expert  administrators  are  appointed  by  the  political 
executive,  as  when  they  are  somewhat  independent.  When  the 
appointees  have  been  to  blame,  those  responsible  for  their  ap¬ 
pointment  are  inclined  to  whitewash,  as  witness  the  star  route,” 
whiskey  and  postoffice  investigations  by  Congress,  whose  nomi¬ 
nees  were  the  ones  involved. 

Another  important  reason  for  this  partial  independence  of 
tenure  is  the  desirability  of  separating  the  appropriating  from 
the  spending  functions  of  the  city  as  far  as  possible.  As  long 
as  a  part  of  the  appropriating  side  is  directly  responsible  for  all 
the  spending,  then  waste  and  extravagance  are  made  up  and 
‘‘  glossed  over  ”  by  larger  appropriations.  But  if  a  somewhat 
independent  board  is  to  spend,  will  it  not  be  held  strictly  to  appro¬ 
priations  made  to  fit  the  needs,  not  the  extravagances,  of  detail 
administration? 

What,  then,  under  a  system  of  separation  between  the  political 
executive  and  the  expert  administrators,  would  be  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  the  chief  political  executive?  It  would  consist  in  laying 
out  the  budget,  based  on  reports  from  and  interviews  with  the 


13 


Change 
Questioned 


experts,  directing  the  general  policies  of  the  city,  suggesting  im¬ 
provements,  seeing  through  investigation  and  supervision  that 
the  work  is  being  done  economically  and  well,  and  that  the  laws 
are  being  enforced,  rewarding  by  praise  or  promotion  where  de¬ 
served,  and  punishing  by  blame  or  removal  where  fault  or  ineffi¬ 
ciency  is  clear. 

But,  once  more,  as  to  the  theory  that  the  executive  must  ap¬ 
point  his  experts,  in  order  that  he  may  carry  out  his  policies  and 

be  responsible  to  the  public,  that  was  one  of  the 
Necessity  for  arguments  against  the  introduction  of  the  civil- 

service  law  for  the  appointment  of  subordinates 
of  collectors  of  customs  and  internal  revenue 
and  of  postmasters,  publicly  made  by  many  of  those  officials,  and 
yet  experience  has  shown  that  they  have  more  instead  of  less 
control  of  their  subordinates  than  before,  and  that  better  results 
are  achieved.  One  reason  for  this,  at  least,  is  that,  while  the  ap¬ 
pointments  were  political,  the  collector  and  the  postmaster  were 
not  free  to  select  for  themselves,  but  had  to  take  those  whom 
the  politicians  sent  them,  nor  could  they  dismiss  inefficient  or 
insubordinate  or  even  intemperate  employees,  who  had  strong 
enough  political  backing. 

How  many  a  mayor  has  to  take,  for  a  would-be  high-grade 
expert,  one  that  will  please  the  political  leaders?  Sometimes  we 
see  these  appointees  running  the  mayor,  because  of  their  superior 
political  pull,  instead  of  the  mayor  running  them,  and  all  the  more 
as  election  day  approaches. 

But  how  is  it  in  large  business  undertakings?  Is  it  necessary 
that  the  new  head  of  the  great  enterprise,  even  if  adopting  new 
policies,  should  change  the  chief  experts  under  him?  There  ap¬ 
peared  lately,  in  one  of  the  magazines,  an  interesting  article  on 
the  splendid  reorganization  of  the  Union  and  Southern  Pacific 
R.  R.  systems  by  its  new  president,  the  late  E.  H.  Harriman. 
This  article  showed  how,  by  establishing  new  policies,  spending 
largely  in  some  directions  and  making  numerous  savings  both 
small  and  large  in  others,  he  had  given  greatly  increased  facility 
to  the  public  and  had  greatly  enlarged  the  profits  to  the  share¬ 
holders  without  increasing  rates. 

What,  for  our  purposes,  was  most  striking,  was  that  he  ac- 


M 


complished  all  this  by  using  the  experts  already  in  the  employ  of 
the  railroad,  who,  under  former  presidents,  had  been  carrying 
on  the  very  reverse,  in  some  respects,  of  the  new  policies,  and 
he  did  not  bring  in  new  men  to  these  higher  positions.  He  pro¬ 
moted  some  of  the  best  ones,  and  inspired  them  all  with  new 
ideas,  encouraging  their  best  efforts  and  criticising  wisely  any¬ 
thing  short  of  the  best  attainments.  They  responded  splendidly 
to  such  treatment,  and  behold  the  practical  results! 

In  order  to  be  sure  of  the  facts,  I  wrote  the  author  of  the 
article,  an  acknowledged  master  of  railroad  affairs,  and  he  re¬ 
plies  that  not  only  did  Mr.  Harriman  use  none  but  the  experts 
already  in  the  employ  of  the  roads,  including  even  his  chief 
counsel ;  but  that  also  “  Mr.  Hill,  in  taking  over  the  Burlington, 
kept  Mr.  Harris  to  head  it,  putting  his  own  traffic  man,  Mr. 
Miller,  in  charge  of  traffic,  but  keeping  the  traffic  organization 
of  the  road  and  its  personnel  intact.” 

“  I  think  it  safe  to  say,”  goes  on  the  author,  “  that  no  eminent 
railroad  organizer  has  ever  done  other  than  to  make  use  of  all 
the  available  material  found  in  office.” 

In  these  two  greatest  railroad  reorganizations  under  new 
presidents  and  boards  of  directors  there  was  no  change  in  the  ex¬ 
perts  in  one  road,  and  only  one  change  in  the  other. 

But,  further,  in  order  to  give  the  necessary  somewhat  perma¬ 
nent  tenure  and  partial  independence  from  politics  to  the  experts, 

the  tenure  should  be  for  good  behavior  and  effi- 
Permanency  ciency  and  the  power  to  remove  or  diminish  sal¬ 
ary  should  be  made  for  cause  only,  not  cause  established  by 
court  proceedings,  but  under  some  assurance  of  such  publicity  as 
will  restrain  its  improper  exercise. 

It  has  been  objected  that,  in  business,  the  power  to  remove  is 
unlimited.  In  business,  however,  the  absence  of  political  pressure 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  presence  of  the  individual  pocket 
nerve  ”  on  the  other  are  real  and  effective  restraints,  while  with 
a  chief  municipal  executive,  the  presence  of  political  pressure 
and  the  absence  of  the  pocket  nerve,”  need  to  be  offset  by  rea¬ 
sonable  requirements  of  publicity. 

The  power  to  appoint,  remove  or  diminish  salary  without  cause, 
and  the  power  to  interfere  in  detail  may  be  of  advantage  to  a 


15 


thoroughly  trustworthy  and  capable  chief  executive;  but  if  the 
experience  of  at  least  a  whole  generation  has  shown  that  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  this  power  makes  it  to  the  interest  of  ward  politicians 
not  to  have  a  good  chief  executive  in  municipalities,  may  it  not 
be  well  to  shift  from  the  chief  political  executive  some  of  the 
responsibility  for  the  details  onto  experts.  If  we  do  this,  do  we 
not  take  the  contracts  and  purchases  out  of  politics,  and,  of  even 
greater  importance,  do  we  not  take  away  the  motive  of  the 
machine  politician,  as  we  know  him,  for  going  into  politics,  and 
deprive  him  of  one  of  his  chief  powers  in  securing  control  and 
thus  remove  the  chief  cause  of  bad  city  government?  As  one 
retired  politician,  trained  in  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  one  of  our 
largest  American  cities,  said,  If  you  carry  out  that  plan,  then 
F.  G.  and  L.  M.  (referring  to  two  bosses  of  what  he  considered 
the  dangerous  kind)  will  immediately  retire  and  take  up  some 
other  business.'^ 

But  it  has  also  been  suggested  that  a  system  of  permanent, 
somewhat  independent  municipal  experts  would  result  in  the  di¬ 
vision  of  responsibility.  In  so  far  as  a  division  of  responsibility 
means  a  number  of  people  responsible  for  the  same  thing,  who 
may  each  shift  the  blame  on  the  others,  it  is  bad.  So  far  as  the 
present  system  goes,  however,  the  theoretical  responsibility  for 
acts  of  a  mayor’s  subordinates,  if  done  without  his  knowledge, 
amounts  to  very  little  in  practise.  The  head  of  a  department  is 
made  the  scapegoat,  and  the  chief  goes  free. 

In  the  United  States  Government,  many  high,  non-elective 
officals  are  responsible  under  their  statutory  bonds  for  the  de¬ 
linquencies  of  their  subordinates.  But  how 
Responsibility  for  ^joes  this  responsibility  work  out  in  practise? 
Delinquencies  There  is  not  a  single  case  in  our  past  history 
where,  in  the  end,  a  superior  has  had  to  pay  for  acts  of  his  sub¬ 
ordinates  in  which  he  has  not  taken  part.  Were  it  otherwise, 
would  it  not  strike  us  as  an  unreasonable  hardship? 

How,  let  us  ask,  does  this  responsibility  work  out  in  the  case 
of  a  mayor  and  the  heads  of  municipal  departments?  Let  us 
take  a  single  case,  for  example,  the  famous  Fenway  scandals  of 
1904-5  in  Boston.  The  late  Mayor  Collins,  of  Boston,  it  not 
having  been  shown  that  he  was  privy  to  the  extravagance  and 


i6 


frauds,  got  very  little  blame  for  the  acts  of  his  superintendent 
of  streets,  whom  he  had  appointed.  Let  us  look  a  little  closer. 
This  official,  appointed  by  Mayor  Collins  in  his  first  term,  had 
raised  a  large  sum  of  money  for  the  re-election  campaign  of  his 
superior,  and  if  Mr.  Collins  had  cared  to  know,  he  could  have 
found  out  that  the  main  contributors  were  municipal  contractors 
and  others  having  dealings  at  City  Hall,  and  it  was  Mayor  Collins 
that  signed  the  orders  making  the  Fenway  extravagance  and 
frauds  possible,  by  which  some  of  those  contributors  reimbursed 
themselves,  yet  he  was  not  supposed  to  be  personally  involved. 
What  became  of  the  mayor’s  responsibility”  in  this  case?  On 
the  death  of  Mayor  Collins,  which  occurred  not  long  after  the 
Fenway  exposures,  his  administration  was  eulogized  by  promi¬ 
nent  men  of  all  parties  and  walks  of  life,  and  there  has  recently 
been  erected  to  his  name  an  imposing  monument  in  the  most 
fashionable  part  of  Boston,  the  inscription  being  written  by  one 
of  the  foremost  men  of  the  country.  Are  we  not  right  in  saying 
that  the  imputed  responsibility  for  acts  of  appointees  is  a  myth? 

The  proposed  system,  however,  is  not  a  division  of  responsi¬ 
bility;  it  is  rather  a  separation  of  responsibility,  fixing  it  more 

clearly  and  definitely  than  before,  and  where  it 
Separation  of  really  belongs.  The  permanent  expert,  whose 

Des&able^^^^^^  professional  reputation  depends  upon  the  suc¬ 
cess  of  his  work,  is  to  be  responsible  for  what 
the  first  Mayor  Quincy  called  “  defects  of  plan  or  inefficiency  of 
execution  ”  of  details. 

But  it  has  been  claimed,  as  an  objection,  that  these  expert 
administrators  should  be  also  partly  cabinet  officers  and  political 
advisors  of  the  mayor,  and  for  that  reason  should  be  appointed 
and  removed  by  him  with  perfect  freedom.  It  is  conceded,  nay 
more,  we  claim,  that  the  mayor  (if  the  chief  political  executive 
be  a  mayor)  should  have  the  power  to  select  a  cabinet  of  political 
advisors  to  help  him  decide  on  the  budget  and  policies,  and  to 
supervise  and  criticize  the  departments — that  is,  the  mayor  and 
his  political  cabinet  would,  in  the  words  from  the  “  Modern  Sym¬ 
posium,”  be  the  means  of  control  by  an  alert  and  intelligent 
public  opinion.”  There  should  always  be,  however,  a  clear  dis¬ 
tinction  between  the  political  executive  with  his  political  advisors 


17 


on  the  one  hand,  and  the  expert  administrators  on  the  other, 
between  the  appropriating  and  the  spending,  the  criticising  and 
the  criticised. 

The  trouble  has  been  that  we  have  heretofore  mixed  these  two 
inconsistent  functions  in  the  same  person.  Let  us  separate  them. 

But  have  we  any  instance,  in  the  history  of  Anglo-Saxon  gov¬ 
ernment,  where  too  much  control  was  found  dangerous  in  prac¬ 
tise,  and  where,  for  the  general  good,  it  was  limited  ?  One  of  the 
chief  functions  of  government  is  the  administration  of  justice, 
and  this  used  to  be  a  part  of  the  duties  of  kings.  The  judges 
were  their  representatives ;  but  the  power  to  remove  the  judges 
was  found  to  be  a  power  too  great  to  lodge  with  safety  in  the 
executive,  and  even  the  legislature  could  not  be  trusted  to  have 
the  power  to  diminish  the  judges’  salaries,  and  so,  in  England  and 
the  United  States,  the  judges  cannot  be  removed  but  for  cause 
well  established,  as  a  rule,  their  salaries  cannot  be  lessened  while 
in  office,  and,  in  England,  the  federal  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  Massachusetts,  their  appointment  is  for  life.  In 
those  states  where  the  judges  are  the  most  mingled  with  politics, 
and  at  the  time  when  this  mingling  is  greatest,  then  and  there 
the  expert  administration  of  justice  is  the  worst. 

As  a  recent  instance  of  interference  with  justice  we  have  Ger¬ 
many’s  note  to  the  United  States  when  about  to  apply  force  to 
Venezuela.  The  note  said,  in  substance,  that  President  Castro 
opposed  the  claims  of  Germany  and  its  citizens,  and  he  sug¬ 
gested  submitting  the  claims  to  the  Venezuelan  courts.  But 
those  courts,  the  note  stated,  were  the  echoes  of  the  President’s 
wishes,  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  removing  those  judges  who  dif¬ 
fered  from  his  views. 

While  we  see  this  independence  of  municipal  experts  working 
well  in  Great  Britain  and  Europe,  and  while  such  authorities 

on  government  as  President  A.  Lawrence  Lowell, 
Independence  Hon.  James  Bryce  and  Dr.  Albert  Shaw 

think  the  existence  of  this  system  is  the  one 
efficient  means  if  not  the  very  cause  of  the  better 
government  in  those  cities,  it  still  might  be  asked,  “  Would  the 
system  work  well  in  our  climate  and  country  ?  ”  Have  we  any¬ 
thing  of  the  sort  in  the  United  States?  Yes,  the  President  of  the 


of  Experts 
Desirable 


i8 


United  States,  our  chief  executive,  elected  by  the  people,  has  the 
responsibility,  exercised  through  his  secretary  of  war,  of  carry¬ 
ing  out  all  the  harbor  and  river  engineering  work  appropriated 
for  by  Congress.  This  is  all  done  by  army  engineers,  of  West 
Point  training  and  education,  already  in  office  when  the  President 
and  his  cabinet  come  in,  and  his  power  of  removal  is  limited  in 
practise  just  about  as  much  as  is  proposed  for  the  municipal  ex¬ 
pert  administrators ;  yet  there  is  no  shirking  of  responsibility 
on  account  of  the  practically  permanent  tenure  of  army  engineers, 
or  because  the  President  has  not  appointed  them,  and  the  work 
has  been  thoroughly,  efficiently  and  honestly  done.  The  great 
work  on  the  Panama  Canal,  since  it  has  been  put  in  charge 
of  the  army  engineers,  has  certainly  been  going  on  smoothly, 
rapidly,  economically,  efficiently  and  with  less  “  fuss  and  feath¬ 
ers  ’’  than  ever  before. 

To  be  sure,  the  President  of  the  United  States  can  asign  an 
army  engineer  to  other  duties;  but  even  then,  the  list  of  army 
engineers  eligible  for  a  place  is  extremely  limited,  and  in  practise 
the  changes  of  duties  are  based  on  seniority  and  experience. 

Again,  it  has  been  objected  that,  to  avoid  the  ills  of  “mob” 
bungling  of  technical  administration,  we  fly  to  red-tape  bureau¬ 
cracy  ;  but  experience  had  demonstrated  that,  by  the  scientific 
adjustment  of  the  representative  and  administrative  spheres  of 
action,  we  may  have  the  best  permanent,  expert  service,  ambitious 
for  fame,  kept  at  its  highest  efficiency  and  initiative,  by  an  ap¬ 
preciative  and  exacting  public,  interested  in  getting  the  best 
results,  and  acting  through  its  political  representatives  endowed 
with  sufficient  powers. 

As  this  co-ordination  is  important,  allow  me  to  state  it  in  an¬ 
other  way.  Let  the  public  act  within  the  scope  of  its  ability  and 
the  experts  within  the  scope  of  theirs,  each  influencing  the  other, 
and  then  we  can  secure  democratic  home  rule,  without  danger  to 
efficiency,  economy  and  honesty. 

Before  closing  this  paper,  I  wish  to  touch  shortly  on  two  other 
causes  commonly  assigned  for  the  failure  of  efficient  and  honest 
government  in  our  cities.  One  is  the  want  of  sufficient  salaries, 
and  the  other  is  the  lack  of  property  qualification  for  municipal 
voters. 


19 


As  to  salaries  for  the  would-be  experts,  it  is  undoubtedly  true 
that  they  are  usually  too  low ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  we  see  most 

able  experts  working  on  small  salaries  as  heads 

Cgln-rioa  ^  ° 

of  some  of  the  scientific  bureaus  of  the  United 
States  government  and  as  professors  and  investigators  in  our  uni¬ 
versities.  Again,  many  of  the  salaries  for  the  heads  of  municipal 
departments  have  been  raised  without  corresponding  improve¬ 
ment.  The  offices  are  still  in  politics.  The  high  salaries  have  not 
frightened  away  politicians. 

In  the  case  of  the  superintendent  of  streets  under  Mayor  Col¬ 
lins  in  charge  of  the  scandalous  Fenway  work,  his  salary  was 
$7,500  a  year.  His  successor,  appointed  by  Mayor  Fitzgerald, 
was  a  man  even  less  fit  for  the  place. 

As  to  the  other  cause  assigned,  namely,  our  lack  of  property 
qualifications  in  municipal  government,  if  restricting  our  elective 
franchise  is  our  only  remedy,  reformers  might  well  despair  and 
abandon  further  effort,  as  there  is  precious  little  chance  that  the 
franchise  can  ever  be  cut  down.  The  fate  of  Coriolanus  in 
Rome  is  likely  to  follow  anyone  who  would  undertake  his  experi¬ 
ment  here.  Besides,  while  admitting  that  the  property  qualifi¬ 
cation  would  probably  result  in  better  economy  in  city  adminis¬ 
tration,  if  it  were  established,  let  me  ask  two  things — first,  does 
history,  past  and  present,  show  that  government  by  the  wealthy 
is  always  free  from  corruption ;  and  second,  if  we  had  property 
representation,  would  it  not  adopt  this  very  separation  of  the 
expert  administrators,  as  it  has  done  in  Germany,  as  the  first  and 
best  means  of  securing  good  city  government? 

So  far  I  have  advisedly  used  the  term  “  chief  executive  ”  of  a 
municipality,  rather  than  mayor,  because,  whether  that  chief  ex¬ 
ecutive  be  a  commission  or  a  mayor  alone  or  a  mayor  with  a  politi¬ 
cally-selected  cabinet,  or  committees  of  a  city  council,  whether  of 
one  or  two  chambers,  or  a  combination  of  several  of  these,  there 
will  still  be  the  need  of  educated,  trained  and  highly  specialized 
experts,  with  pretty  permanent  and  somewhat  independent  tenure, 
to  carry  out  our  numerous  municipal  undertakings  with  as  little 
intermingling  of  politics  as  is  reasonably  possible,  for  the  very 
protection  of  such  future  executives  as  mean  well,  and  the  better 
chance  of  getting  good  ones  in. 


20 


Summary  of 
Suggestions 


Should  our  plan  be  adopted,  let  me  recapitulate  some  of  the 
objects  which  would  be  attained. 

(a)  Securing  for  such  positions  experienced  men  of  high  char¬ 
acter  and  training  in  place  of  men  without  the  necessary  knowl¬ 
edge,  whose  chief  bringing  up  has  too  frequently 
been  in  the  saloon  and  in  ward  politics. 

(b)  A  tenure  based  on  merit  and  fitness,  in¬ 
stead  of  subserviency  to  political  powers  through  whose  favor 
the  position  is  held  and  who  demand  favors  in  return. 

(c)  Heads  of  departments  who  believe  in  the  merit  system  and 
wish  to  enforce  it,  in  place  of  spoilsmen  seeking  to  avoid  and 
break  it  down,  and  to  circumvent  the  civil  service  commission. 

(d)  Municipal  contracts  honestly  and  efficiently  made  and 
strictly  enforced,  in  place  of  contracts  so  carelessly  drawn  and 
carried  out  as  to  open  opportunities  for  fraudulent  profits  to  in¬ 
fluential  contractors. 

(e)  Clean  streets  and  better  security  for  the  public  health, 
such  as  Col.  Waring  gave  when  in  charge  of  the  streets  of  New 
York. 

(f)  Economy^  of  being  free  to  get  a  day’s  work  for  a  day’s 


pay. 

(g)  Encouraging  engineers  and  scientific  men  to  take  muni¬ 
cipal  work  and  keeping  them  in  office,  instead  of  discouraging 
them  with  the  prospect  of  political  wrangles  and  turning  them 
out  to  make  room  for  those  of  more  political  influence. 

(h)  Offering  to  capable  and  specially-trained  experts  a  career 
in  municipal  work. 

(i)  A  chance  of  promotion  that  will  attract  capable  young  men 
for  the  positions  of  assistants. 

(j)  More  independent  supervision  and  investigation  by  the 
political  executive,  as  the  expert  administrators  are  themselves 
somewhat  independent  and  responsible  for  their  own  departments. 

(k)  A  separation  of  the  appropriating  from  the  spending 
functions. 

(l)  An  accounting  that  will  show  the  cost  of  public  work  done, 
instead  of  methods  intended  to  conceal  extravagance. 


^  The  counsel  for  both  new  and  old  finance  commissions  of  Boston, 
recently  stated  that  $io  are  lost  by  inefficiency  to  one  dollar  lost  by  fraud. 


21 


(m)  Continuity  of  public  works  conceived  on  broad  plans  for 
the  future,  and  not  makeshift  and  vacillating  policies  with  refer¬ 
ence  to  temporary  political  expedients. 

(n)  More  definite  fixing  of  responsibility  between  the  political 
executive  and  the  expert  administrators. 

(o)  And  finally,  taking  all  forms  of  spoils,  both  patronage,  law 
enforcement  and  contracts,  out  of  politics,  removing  the  motives 
that  induce  the  machine  politician  to  keep  his  hand  on  the  throttle, 
and  so  making  it  easier  to  secure  good  chief  executives. 

So  important  is  it  to  create  a  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  the 
separation  of  the  political,  or  public  policy  determining  executive, 
from  the  expert  administration,  for  the  mutual  benefit  of  both, 
that,  for  the  present  general  purposes,  I  shall  say  nothing  as  to 
the  means  by  which  this  separation  may  be  brought  about  and 
maintained,  for  fear  of  distracting  attention  from  the  desired  re¬ 
sult.  If,  then,  this  distinction  is  correct  in  theory,  and  the  separa¬ 
tion  desirable  in  practise,  let  us  set  to  work  at  once  to  create  the 
necessary  public  opinion;  and  if  there  is  reasonable  hope  of  se¬ 
curing  the  good  results  set  forth  in  this  paper,  is  it  not  a  cause 
to  arouse  all  our  enthusiasm  and  inspire  our  noblest  efforts? 


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